(PPP) Midori XIX: When She Turned
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: Before her menarche and subsequent affinity matching, she is just a colour and a number - a girl like any other in the facility, waiting for her future. She is the nineteenth Midori - Midori XIX.
1. Six

**A/N:** Another drabble collection/character peak from the PPP series, this time focusing on Midori XIX (who was mentioned several times in the Momo XIII drabbles).

Written for:

Diversity Writing Challenge, d5 – drabble collection with drabbles 50-500 words  
Ultimate Sleuth Challenge, Ch 2 – Kowloon lvl 2/EDEN Community Area - Write a ficlet novel/collection (Up to 1000 words per chapter)  
The Building Blocks Challenge, colour prompts #99 – pale green (this chapter only)

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 **Pebbles Paint the Path**

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Midori XIX: When She Turned  
 ** _When She Turned Six_**

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When Midori turned six, she felt a little more grown up than the others.

The other birthdays weren't so important. They received their stones: the only way to differentiate one year from the next, but she was the only one on their table to have five stones, and that meant she was the first of them to glimpse the training room.

And that glimpse of the training room was the first milestone they reached – assuming they even made it that long.

Her table was mostly strangers now. Just last year, they'd been different though only a familiar eye and the number of stones would know the differences between them. Momo was the same, though. Still four stones at the moment, but she'd get her fifth before Midori gained her sixth and that made them part of the same batch, presumably. And the other four between them, but they were different. And more distant because of it.

The numbers muddled somewhere. None of them knew nor cared where the cut-off was, for them being in one cohort instead of another. And it didn't matter. There were many Midori, just like there were many Momo, Pinku. Aka and all the rest. Not too many Murasaki though. They were a rarer breed.

It had to do with the affinities, or so said the rumours. Murasakis had a certain special sort of affinity. Midoris, in contrast, were painfully boring. But boring was good, in the facility. Boring meant things were progressing as per normal. Meant that there was little threat of not meeting a cut and Midoris didn't have a great life expectancy either. That was why she was the nineteenth and Momo was only the thirteenth. Six lives in between. Momo had been on that table before even Midori had come along. She knew Midori XVIII, even if she never spoke of her.

So complicated sometimes, but at other times it didn't matter. Like now. She might be a higher number (but only higher than Momo; the others were higher still, including Pinku whose they didn't even know), but she was older. And she would be the one with the first glimpse of the training room, with a fruit the others would have to wait to taste.

She had this above Momo at least. This above the others at their table that weren't the Murasaki and Aka and Pinku she'd known from before, and so there was only Momo left to measure herself against – though Midoris were only supposed to measure themselves against other Midoris and that was that.

But how could she, when she'd never talk to another Midori unless there were two of them being simultaneously disposed of. And she wouldn't be disposed. The odds were low, but not stacked against her. Aside from Momos, Midoris had the best odds, and the highest success rates to boot. Higher than the Momos, even. They were needed more.

Midori was the nineteenth, but she wasn't going to let number twenty take her place.


	2. Seven

**Pebbles Paint the Path**

Midori: When She Turned  
 _ **When She Turned Seven**_

When Midori turned seven, she'd gained an even greater determination to succeed. Pre-training was brutal and only the strongest would survive it, but pre-training also meant she'd passed the first few tests and was well on her way. Many disappeared before they turned six, before they even caught their first glimpse of the training room.

And she'd be damned if she failed now, before she actually got past the last hurdles and into that training room.

And so, when Midori turned seven, she was obsessively checking her undergarments for brown or reddish stains. They didn't show up, of course, unless she'd grazed herself on the leg during pre-training. But she kept waiting. For some, it took six years. The Midori class tended to be pretty quick in terms of maturation, though. Most didn't wait for more than three and this was just the first year.

Still, she was eager. Impatient. Restless energy buzzed under her skin and pre-training could only do so much when she hungered for more. Still, she understood the rationale. Her body ached every day and the training room would push her even harder… but while her body was tired, her soul was ready for more.

So until she got there, she needed to catch her body up to speed and that meant as much time in pre-training as possible, and little else. As it was, once they passed six they had less time for hobbies and rest than before, and more chances to fail. Less time to spend with others at their table. More time to spend with others in their class… but even then it was only at a distance, to observe and compete but never to converse or become companions…

And even those from the other classes, that they ate with, were only fragile and fleeting companions. There'd been several Murasaki already and another Momo, whose personality had long since merged into the blur of her earliest memories. And they'd leave that table eventually as well, either when their menarche came or they lost the natural selection rest. They were tested at every turn, after all, and there wasn't much room to fail. The Murasaki class were often quickly culled and quickly replaced. Her class fell somewhere in the middle and that was far from safety. Pinku, perhaps, could breathe a little easier than the rest of them but even they, rare as they were, had a steep minimum requirement from what she'd learnt.

But she no longer had the luxury to think about the other classes much, anymore. Just how far they'd support her on the field. Just dreaming of the field she'd never see and wouldn't ever see until she first reached and passed through the training room.

And to do that, she needed to be constantly satisfactory in her pre-training and she needed to achieve her menarche.

And the second was out of her control, no matter how she searched.

She could only wait and do her best at the first.


End file.
